Partners target Footwall

Vancouver — Aurora Platinum (ARP-V) and joint venture partner, Falconbridge (FL-T), are gearing up to commence the next phase of exploration on the Footwall property in Sudbury, Ontario. Falconbridge is the operator.

The 1,600-ha Footwall property is situated along the South Range of the Sudbury Igneous Complex between the Garson and Norduna Ni-Cu-PGM mines. The property covers about 8 km of the contact and footwall rocks of the Sudbury Igneous Complex and lies immediately adjacent to, and south of the Falconbridge and Falconbridge East mines as well a Cryderman properties held by Inco. The contact dips to the south in this area and Aurora states that each of the aforementioned mines and properties have been projected down-dip onto the Footwall property. Both the contact and footwall rocks are primary host rocks to nickel-copper and PGM deposits in the Sudbury camp.

According to the terms of the agreement with Falconbridge, Aurora must spend $6 million on exploration on the property over a three year period in order to earn a 60% interest.

Aurora Platinum states that the property has been inadequately explored in the past and plans a $1.5 million exploration program to test a number of targets on the property. The previous operator identified several mineralized structures along the contact Aurora has resurveyed a few shallow holes using UTEM down-hole geophysics and confirmed an anomaly that is believed to represents this mineralization. This anomaly will be drill tested in the current program.

Contact-type mineralization on ground to the north projects down-dip onto the eastern portion of the Footwall property and is offers a good target for additional mineralization at depth. A 1,500-metre exploration hole put down in this area earlier detected a strong UTEM anomaly that is believed to represent this mineralization. A second off-hole anomaly was identified to the west. Previous drilling in the vicinity of this anomaly, which is situated east of the Falconbridge East mine, intersected contact-type mineralization grading 1.56% nickel and 0.67% copper over 6.7 ft. No PGM values were reported.

Both the Falconbridge and Falconbridge East mine mineralization remains open at depth. Deep drilling in the footwall of these two mineralized zones detected a moderate to strong UTEM anomaly. Previous drilling by Falconbridge below the East Mine workings confirmed the continuation of mineralization for an additional 800 ft. Highlights of this drilling include;

• Hole F-78 cut 43.3 ft averaging 2.37% nickel and 0.78% copper. PGM values were not reported.
• Hole F-133 intersected 12.5 ft averaging 1.68% nickel and 1.16% copper.
• Hole F-135 cut 22.5 ft. averaging 1.94% nickel and 1.08% copper.
• Hole F-136 cut 26.0 ft. averaging 1.45% nickel and 1.11% copper.
• Hole F-137 cut 8.6 ft. averaging 1.20% nickel and 0.23% copper.
• Hole F-138 cut 46.9 ft. averaging 1.91% nickel and 1.41% copper.

Aurora Platinum reports that this mineralization will also be targeted in the current drill program.